Nitori's OEM SR Foglight mod!

OP NOTE: Truck is sold, I won't be on TW much anymore so if you have questions you can still try to PM me, but try asking in the thread first.

Yes indeed, this is an SR Tacoma with TRD Off Road trim fog lights... and you'd be hard pressed to be able to tell it wasn't factory!

I've cooked up a way to use the OEM hardware that's already installed on your SR Tacoma to make a seamless, integrated fog light upgrade that uses no wire taps or add-a-fuses. It uses the body ECU to control them! This means that your fogs will behave exactly like OEM lights on the SR5 and up trims. Especially important is the fact that they will automatically click off when you use your high beams, so this means you can pass inspection from even the pickiest of stations! (I know some people don't like this feature and want an "always on" setup... well, sorry, you'll still have to hack that!) It even lights up the "fog light" indicator on your dash when you click them on!

====BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING!!====

The most important part of this job is figuring out if you are pre-wired or not, as it changes the steps (and the parts you need!) drastically.
If you have a utility package truck, you are probably not pre-wired. If you have a V6 or the convenience package truck, you most likely are pre-wired.

Luckily figuring our your wiring situation is reasonably easy. To check, you need to remove your steering column cover. Turn the steering wheel 90 degrees in either direction to get access to the two screws on the cover. After it is unscrewed, pop the top and bottom half of the cover apart- there are tabs that hold the 2 halves together.
Here's a great guide from @moe2o4 for doing just that, follow the first 2 steps: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2016-3rd-gen-intermittent-wiper-mod.397942/

Now that you have the cover off, you want to look at the black wiring connector that goes into your turn signal assembly, on the left side of the column.

If you see this:

It means you are NOT pre-wired. You'll follow the guide contained in this post, just keep scrolling down.

If you see this:

(note the difference is that there is a blue and white wire in the top row)
It means you ARE pre-wired for fogs! You get to follow the pre-wired guide HERE.

Lastly, be careful putting your column cover back on the steering column in the meantime. I've found it's reasonably easy to get that clamshell cover put back together close enough that it looks right, but it's still slightly too far out into the steering wheel's travel and you'll scrape it during turns.

====THE "MY SR IS NOT PRE-WIRED" METHOD====

OK, first off here are all the parts numbers you need for the 55W TRDOR version:

• Right fog lamp: 81210-08020
• Left fog lamp: 81220-08020
• Installation screws x2: 90167-50063
• Right fog lamp cover: 52127-04020
• Left fog lamp cover: 52128-04020
• Engine bay harness: 82114-04010
• Fog lamp relay: 90080-87026
• repair wire terminal: 82998-47010 (This is tough to find, I used megazip.com and it took a few weeks to come in. Hopefully this will be a more readily available part on US shores in the future!)

On top of this, you need a switch. Any simple SPST switch will do, but read on. From the factory, the fog light control is on the turn signal stalk. Pre-wired people get to use their fancy switch, we have to innovate. I used a 2015 Tacoma Fog light switch (button) to make up the difference and I even figured out how to get it to light up using an unused power source on the SR! This is because the deck light button's connector still exists behind the dash, but is not used on this trim level. Another parts list and more details follow later on in the post.

It's easiest to start with the engine bay wiring harness. Pull out the front grille and lay out the harness. It has clips spaced along its length that push into corresponding holes on the bumper to hold it in place. Plugging the harness into the connector that is already there, front and center in front of the radiator is pretty self-explanatory. I actually goofed and clicked the attachment clips in from the top, they should go in from the bottom- this doesn't really matter as it fits either way.

The two clips closest to the fog light connectors are a little hard to see and get to, but the first one pops in from the back side of the bumper, up near where the headlight is, and then the second mount is inside the bumper, closer to where the fog light actually mounts. It helps to have a friend helping (or flexible, long monkey arms!) but it shouldn't be too big of a deal to click all of the anchors into place.

You should have plenty of slack in the harness.

Installation of the fog lights is pretty straight forward and has been covered by other helpful TW members, but the basic idea is plug 'em into the harness, slide each lamp's tabs into their mating holes in the bumper, and then secure them with the installation screws, coming in from behind. A magnetic screwdriver that is a little on the short side is a life saver here!

The covers all pop on pretty easily. They are not going to fit exactly flush against the fog light housing, this is on purpose so don't fret. I've seen people freak out and RTV the gap, all that does is make your life hell.

Next comes the relay. Push your new relay into the empty slot next to the purple relay. (Toyota already gave you the 15A fuse, how nice of them!) This is also helpfully labeled on the fuse box lid.

Now comes the toughest part of the whole operation, adding an extra terminal to the body ECU on Pin 26. This is where Toyota decided to road block the process. Fortunately it's not too hard to get around!

First off, you need to get inside the dash. Moe2o4 to the rescue again, his method of fog light installation involves fuse taps but includes a great guide on getting your dash apart, check steps 5 through 8: here

Once you've followed their excellent tutorial on how to get the dash apart, come back here.

A good pic shamelessly double-stolen from @moe2o4 and @hilux22RE :

The connector we need to mess with is circled in yellow.

Here's my lousy cell phone camera close up, with the pinout you need to add a terminal to highlighted:


Since my cell phone camera is terrible at taking pictures of this particular connector, this is the mirrored schematic, adjusted for what it looks like when you see the back of the connector:

There will be a green wire underneath pin 26, and a black wire to the left of it. The yellow star is the spot we need to add the pin!

The worst part of this whole thing is sourcing the proper terminal:

As I stated before I had to get it from Japan... I'm hoping these hit US parts departments soon!

Once you have sourced the terminal, it is pretty easy to install into the connector. The first step is unplugging it.

This connector is really funky in the way it locks its terminals in place, the connector is actually layered! Luckily it comes apart very easily, but be gentle!

You can see I'm prying up the first layer with just my thumbnail and a light touch. Work your way across, and off it will pop.

It's easy to do, just a bizarre way of being put together.
Keep repeating the process of popping off layers...

You will eventually get down to the last level. Again, this whole time all I needed was a thumbnail between the layers and some gentle pulling, no need to shove a screwdriver in between layers or anything. If you need some extra leverage, find something thin and plastic like the edge of a credit card, or a jewelers screwdriver if you absolutely have to. Really though, it should come apart pretty easily.

Anyways here's what you'll see on that bottom layer:

That light teal green wire is NOT going to be there, that's the temporary solution I drove around with for a while. It's just a stripped wire shoved down into the connector until it stuck with friction. It actually held way better than I thought it would, but I still wouldn't call it a permanent solution.

I pulled that out and slid in my new repair terminal (black wire). The terminal only goes into the slot one way, and be sure you have the right slot because it locks into place with a click!


The connector layers all snap back together easily, and then you have a completed connector with an extra pinout. Plug it back in to where it belongs!


DASH SWITCH INSTALL

Now, the last thing you need to do is attach a switch to that new pinout you've just created! A simple switch going straight to ground is fine, but here's how to make it look almost totally OEM with a 2nd gen (2012-2015) switch!
Important note on switches: If you choose to go aftermarket, you will likely need to figure out the wiring layout all by yourself, as I can not possibly list every combination of switch and wire color out there. At the most basic level, the switch should make the wire from ECU pin 26 connect to ground. How the switch lighting shakes out from there is done a bunch of different ways.

Parts list:

• Fog light switch: 84160-04020
• Switch connector: 90980-11090
• "repair" terminals for the connector: 82998-12340 x2 (you only need 2, you will be reusing another 2 already on the car!)
• If you want to add a light to your switch that will roughly match your existing dash lights, check this out, or use your favorite T3 sized "ice blue" style bulb, LED or otherwise.

OK, first order of business is to get under there and find your unused deck lighting plug. It should have been tucked neatly into a blank holder in the back of the lower dash cover you removed in an earlier step. It will look like this:

This is where we're going to pirate our light power from. Those top 2 connectors (green wire and beige wire) are the source. There's tutorials out there on how to get connectors apart but the quick and dirty version is there's a white "locking" piece on the connector that looks like a multi-tiered "E". You pop that partially up to release the secondary lock, and then stick a small, thin tool down the lower part of slot on the front of the connector (not the connection itself but that upside down "T" shaped slot underneath it) to release the clip and slide the connector out/ pull gently from the other side. Those are the only wires we need to release.

Of course it came out blurry (no picture taken in my foot well ever comes out clearly) but you get the idea. You will need to undo the closest wrapping of electrical tape to get this much slack.

Here's how the wiring shakes out:
(Note that this diagram ONLY applies to the OEM switch.)

Slide those terminals you just liberated into the 90980-11090 connector (make sure you have them in the right slots!) and then follow up by installing the 2 "repair" terminals. You'll be using those to go to pin 26 on the ECU and to ground.

You can use this dash bolt to ground the switch on pin 4:


And then hook up the other repair terminal (going into pin 3 of the switch) to Pin 26 of the ECU. You can use crimp-on terminals to make the connection, or a crimp on butt splice, solder and heat shrink, whatever you would like to use.

Now that you have an awaiting connector, it's time to install that fog light switch into the dash!

There's one small complication though. In order to make switches a very square-peg-round-hole affair that no one could mess up, the 2015 switch has a small tab that the 2016 will dash will not allow in.


The lower left corner of the hole needs another indent:

I used a small file to do this, probably better than a dremel because you have better control and it's a tight spot. Don't worry, the plastic is very hard and easy to work with.



It allows that little tab on the switch to pass through, and then the dash switch will click into place nice and snug!

And that's that! A switched ground to pin 26 makes the fog lights work exactly as shipped from the factory! You're done! You've got SR fog lights with a little bit of fidgeting, and aside from the different switching method there's no way to tell it didn't come from the factory that way! Plus, you didn't have to worry about cutting apart your stock harness, or passing anything through the firewall!

Here's my latest picture with switch pros in the mix for good measure:

 

Dude, you are my hero!!!
I've been watching your posts on other threads waiting for you to figure it out. I actually already bought and installed the harness and lights. Now I just need to get the relay and wire. Please let me know how the pin wire goes. I might reach our with questions if that is cool?
Thanks!!

 

Finally a fog light mod done the right way. Good job.
This should be a sticky thread.
Is your next project the display console in the center dash? That will earn you a trophy !

 

I'd be honored to be worthy of a sticky... who has the power to do that, though? At the very least I could see if it's worthy of addition to one of the other stickies about mods.

Ah jeez, you guys are tough on me! I've already looked at that, believe it or not. A few problems aside from the fact that the new dash cluster is something like $500...

• There's no steering wheel controls for the information display, and again I've confirmed there's no harness wires for it!
• It looks like no wires means serious disassembly in this case.
• I'm not sure where odometer data is stored, if you would have to have the cluster re-set somehow

However, not all is lost.
It looks like the ECM is basically all the same, and I don't see the cluster talking to any other modules on the wiring diagram. This means that theoretically, if you get an Ultragauge you should be able to read everything the multi information display tells you. In fact, you MIGHT (and I really stress MIGHT here) be able to even get the TRDOR's pitch and tilt sensors talking on ANY truck if you have the right PID's for them. This, however, is a pretty big task- as without access to the source code, you'd basically be making blind guesses and hoping something would talk. Again, this is all highly theoretical, as I don't know what they do to make the Sport's cluster different from the OR's cluster.

 

Thanks for doing this. I don't have a Sr but it's the reason people like me come to this place.

 

Great progress!

 

bumpy bump. Edited the OP with more info on how to add & integrate a lighted dash switch from a 2015.

 

I vote for a sticky too. Good work OP. I'm using a 2nd gen switch too with an eBay T3 Aqua color LED to illuminate the switch. Kinda dim but the color matches.

 

Could you pass me a link?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/291453146241
I believe it's dim because the bulb orientation fires sideways instead of towards the fog symbol(if that makes sense)

 

*** link is a T4 size.
I can't find my T3 link. I purchased a while back.

 

Great write up!
Shameless plug: I have a complete fog light setup for sale in the 3rd gen classified section.

 

Thanks ! And great work. Anyway to use the factory fog light switch from a 16/17.
Please think about doing a TPMS bypass switch thanks again

 

There is no easy swap for a switch from a 16/17... it's on the wiper stalk:

And somehow I don't think many people would go for "Step 4: remove your airbag and steering wheel" being part of the directions.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by TPMS bypass... there's already a button you can use to reset it, or there's the old PVC pipe trick. If I understand correctly the TPMS unit is also a part of the receiver for the factory alarm system.

 

I actually prefer the switch to be on the dash.

 

H , On my fourth GEN 4Runner there was a mod where we could have a switch to turn off the TPMS warning light on the dash. This came in very helpful when airing down for off-road , changing wheels and tires for the winter etc. I was just hoping and you seem so knowledgeable that you might be able to steer me in the right direction because there is a way to do it on the fourth GEN 4runner and in the second GEN Tacoma. I would like to do this mod on my fifth GEN 4runner and my 3rd gen Tacoma.
Thanks

 

Bumping on request of some members. In all seriousness though, who is the mod on this section? Who would I DM to get this stickied?

Also the terminal has shipped, waiting on it to arrive from Japan!

 

Bump again, the guide is now complete with the repair terminal and a link to the ice blue bulbs that I used!

 

There are no section specific mods.

But for stickies, you want the site owner. @tcBob

 

Great in depth write-up! I'm curious where you get the diagrams for all the electrical circuits for this truck?

I would recommend remounting that switch ground though to something more solid. In the pics, it looks like the base is plastic that the ring is sandwiched against.
From experience in the past, the connection may loosen up due to the plastic compressing. This will work, but not the most secure way to do it.